He Dreams of Fire
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, oneshot. Fiendfyre burns the body. Harry and Draco are trying to find out whether it burns the soul just as much. COMPLETE.


**Title: **He Dreams of Fire

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Rating: **R

**Warnings: **Profanity, sex, angst, oddities in format, "eighth year" fic, DH spoilers.

**Word Count: **~9000

**Challenges: **for qumabh:

_Keywords: _key, break, tear

_Dialogue: _"but I'm sitting on it"

**Summary: **Fiendfyre burns the body. Harry and Draco are trying to find out whether it can burn the soul just as much.

**He Dreams of Fire**

_The chimeras were leaping around him. Their claws closed on his body, and they lashed their tails and screamed at him. The only thing that saved him was the tight, cool clutch of arms across his stomach, which seemed to draw him back towards sanity._

*

Harry awoke with a gasp and a choke. He couldn't move. He couldn't see. He was burning to death.

And then his brain reacted properly, and he knew he had blankets wrapped tightly around him, hair hanging in his eyes, and skin burning with sweat from the tight wrapping. He kicked the sheets off and rolled restlessly over the side of the bed. Though his feet hit the floor with a solid thump, the breathing of the other Gryffindor seventh-year—eighth-year—what-the-fuck-ever—boys was undisturbed.

Harry closed his eyes and clamped his hands over his face. His hands shook. He had to wait a moment until he was sure he wouldn't stab himself in the eye with his own fingers.

He could have discarded the dream if it had been the only one he had. Hermione had researched Fiendfyre over the summer, after the endless round of funerals was ended and they could think about such things, and she'd told him it was even more dangerous than she'd suspected, with permanent effects on the mind. Of course he would have nightmares about it, the same way he would about any other traumatic experience. Even a few nightmares wouldn't have been exceptional.

But he dreamed every night, and mostly about things that hadn't happened. Like the flames actually closing in on him, for instance, and about seeing only chimeras in the fire instead of the many beasts he'd actually seen.

And about Malfoy pulling him to safety, when it happened the other way around.

Hermione would probably say that nightmares weren't rational, and that there was no single key to tell him what all his dreams "meant." But Harry was damn tired of having them anyway, and wished he had that key so he could make them go _away._

He gave his bed a disgusted glance—even when he used _Scourgify_, it didn't get all the smell of the sweat out of the sheets—and threw on a light robe, then grabbed his Charms textbook and went to sit in the common room until everyone else woke up. At least the fire there was too small and too tame to give anyone bad dreams.

*

_The dragon reached up to enclose him in its mouth. He screamed without sound, flailing backwards, trying to reach someone or something who would stop him from falling. Because he was falling, tumbling towards the dragon's mouth that never got any closer no matter how far he plummeted, crying out in a voice that was never answered—_

_And then a hand seized him from above, and he tilted his head back, tears burning away on his lashes._

_Potter stared down at him, eyes wide and desperate, and then hauled, and Draco was swinging beneath the broom as they fled, trying to climb Potter's arm to safety. But just like the dragon, the broom never seemed to get any closer._

*

Draco opened his eyes, then slammed them shut again, and deliberately thought of nothing but the overly spicy dinner he'd eaten that night, alone in his bedroom, since he didn't feel like going to the Great Hall. Doubtless it had given him these strange dreams. Spicy food did perilous things to one's innards. The house-elves had taught Draco that when he was young, and he saw no reason to give up the belief.

He ignored the fact that he'd had these dreams for two months now, ever since he got back to school, and he hadn't had spicy food for every meal. He ignored it magnificently.

He sat up slowly and spent a few moments breathing steadily in and out, so that if he encountered anyone in the common room, they wouldn't have a reason to think he'd woken from fear. (And he _hadn't. _It was no surprise that he should dream about Fiendfyre after he nearly died in it. Really, the surprising thing was Potter's presence. Most of Draco's nightmares didn't include rescuers).

He hesitated for a moment among the textbooks, then chose Potions. He was behind in that class, for more reasons than simply because Professor Snape wasn't around to help him anymore. He saw more than enough Charms and Transfiguration last year, even though the uses to which they were put—

Yes, lots of Charms and Transfiguration. But the single most useful discipline he'd learned last year was a way to stop his thoughts before they reached their inevitable conclusion. He did it now, and went to study by the common room fire.

Draco had to look at the flames every so often, because he wanted to make sure that they didn't transform into a dragon coming to tear him apart, but so what? That was a lot better than some people were doing right now. Just look at Greg, who would never be right in the head again after he'd seen Vince die. Draco was doing _fine. _Dreams were a small price to pay, compared to what could have been.

*

_Lions with manes of fire reared up and around him, as if they wanted to break him on claws of flame. Harry stared around frantically and backed up, but there was no sign of his broom, or of Ron and Hermione. He called their names. His voice faded into the chuckle of the fire. _

_Someone shouted his name from above him. Harry raised his head, straining his eyes. He knew the voice was Malfoy's, and that Malfoy was his only way to safety, and that he had to find him and get away before—_

_The fire fell in on him with a roar of triumph._

*

"That is _it_," Harry announced to the world in general that morning, or at least to Ron and Hermione as they sat at breakfast. "I'm tired of these fucking dreams. I'm going to do something about them."

"_Harry!_" Hermione said, but luckily this was one of the mornings when Ron was almost asleep in his porridge, and she didn't have the concentration to scold Harry for his language. She tugged at Ron's hair. "Ron, wake _up_. Anyone would assume you'd been staying up until all hours snogging Lavender again." Her face was bright pink, in a way that assured Harry Ron had _better _not have been doing that. "And give me your Charms book so that I can show you the pages you were supposed to study. We only have twenty minutes."

"But I'm sitting on it," Ron said, out of whatever dream was currently consuming him. Harry winced in sympathy. He knew Ron'd stayed up late writing a Transfiguration essay the night before. He wasn't about to betray that to Hermione, because their "timely" snogging was part of the reason Ron had needed to do the essay at night.

Hermione burst into a perfect thunder of scolding. Harry turned to face the Great Hall, sweeping it with a fierce glance, hoping it would miraculously give him some suggestion about how to face his dreams.

Nothing in particular caught his eye among the chattering Ravenclaws, yawning Hufflepuffs, and silent Slytherins. The Slytherins were always silent now, Harry thought idly, as if they could feel how most of the school despised them.

Except Malfoy.

Malfoy was staring straight at him, a challenge in his eyes. Harry started to glance away. He knew Malfoy had suffered during the summer, with his father arrested and sent to Azkaban and his mother nearly arrested. Harry had had to give testimony about how Mrs. Malfoy had helped him in the Forbidden Forest to set her free, in fact.

Then he decided that he didn't bloody well care if the git had suffered during the summer, he still didn't have the right to _stare _at Harry like that, the spineless coward. Harry folded his arms on the table and stared back.

Malfoy tensed, but he didn't look away or drop his eyes. And the longer their gazes locked, the more Harry thought of the brilliance of those eyes in his dream, and the hand Malfoy had stretched out to rescue him—

_Except that's not the way it happened. I rescued him. He's the one who owes the life-debt. _

It didn't seem to matter to his sleeping brain, and it didn't seem to matter to Malfoy. He had a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead, but he didn't look away. Harry leaned forwards, all tense himself, his shoulders shaking slightly. He wanted to spring over the table and run towards Malfoy and—

And what? He realized suddenly that he didn't know what would happen when he got to the Slytherin table. Once, before the war, he would have assumed he'd punch Malfoy. Naturally.

But now a sheet of fire seemed to pass before his eyes and herd his thoughts into a different pathway, as the Fiendfyre had herded him in his dreams last night.

"Harry? _Harry!_"

Harry snapped his eyes away from Malfoy's, and found Hermione frowning at him. She shook her head and used _Scourgify _to clean something off his lips. Harry yelped and turned his face away. "Hermione!"

"You had food near your mouth," Hermione said. "You couldn't go to class like that." She tapped him hard on the shoulder and scooped up the satchel that lay near his foot when he didn't move. "Come on, we'll miss Charms!"

_Twenty minutes went past like that? _Harry started and hurried out the door of the Great Hall after Hermione. He could still feel Malfoy's eyes on his back.

_I couldn't possibly have been staring at him for twenty minutes._

But he trusted Hermione's time sense above his own. And, come to think of it, his shoulders ached as they would have if he'd really been sitting in one position that long.

It was the first time he'd had something else fill his mind so completely since the beginning of the Fiendfyre dreams.

_That's it, _he decided as he slid into place at his desk a moment before Flitwick walked into the classroom. _I reckon Malfoy's going to be my distraction from the dreams. _

_Whether he wants to be or not._

*

_Potter circled above him on the broom while the roof caught on fire. Draco stood still and tried not to show how frightened he was, the way running around would, but he knew that wouldn't matter to the flames, which coiled above his head in the shape of manticores. The manticores had claws longer than the hippogriff he'd faced in third year. They had long, brilliant teeth. They had uncaring eyes. _

_He was just trying to fool Potter. And if Potter was his only way out of this, then pretending he could do this on his own was just stupid._

"_Potter!_" _he called out, and then Potter swooped towards him and snatched him out of the flames into light and flight and safety. _

*

Draco frowned at the memory of the dream, then paused. It had taken a long time to return to him. Most days, the Fiendfyre images insisted on flickering across his brain as he sat studying or brewing or eating.

This time, he'd gone twelve hours without a distraction. And he'd done much better in Potions than he would have done otherwise—well enough in that afternoon's class to surprise Slughorn.

Draco slowly put aside his Transfiguration essay and sat staring into the common room fire for a moment. He was sitting closer than he really wanted to, but it wouldn't do for rumors to spread that Draco Malfoy was affected in any way by his experience in the Room of Hidden Things. That was why Draco used Silencing Charms on his bed at night.

_But I've tried so many different things to make them go away. What finally did it? I didn't do anything today that I don't normally—_

And then he remembered the staring contest at breakfast with Potter that morning, and flushed. Luckily, he thought that he also sat close enough to the fire that most people would take his flush as evidence of heat, not of embarrassment. He didn't need to think of new ways to reveal his feelings.

_Why did I do that? Other than because he had that strange expression on his face, and then I couldn't look away when he started staring at _me.

But Draco had to have been looking at Potter in the first place to notice the strange expression, and he couldn't remember what the look was now, or why it had attracted his attention. Just that Potter didn't look on top of the world, the way Draco thought he would have been after winning a war and defeating a Dark Lord and seeing so many of his enemies go to prison. He didn't go out of his way to taunt the Slytherins anymore, either, or to act like a know-it-all in Potions. But this was the first time that Draco had thought specifically of those things as applying to him, rather than in the abstract.

_Why would the dreams stop because he stared at me? _

Draco sat up, suddenly enough that Pansy gave him a curious sidelong glance. Draco settled back in the chair at once, not really wanting to attract attention, and Pansy shrugged and went back to her flirting with Blaise.

_Unless he controls the dreams. _

Draco could feel his conviction growing as he sat there, just like the fungus that Alecto Carrow had rooted in Michael Corner's head one day and sped up so that Draco could watch it changing from moment to moment—

He stopped himself from thinking about it. He didn't have thoughts like that. He didn't have scars.

_And I never would have had dreams about the Fiendfyre unless Potter gave them to me. That must be it. He was staring at me today because he's got tired of playing around with them and wants me to know that he's behind them. _

Draco narrowed his eyes. _I wonder what it means that he decided to give me one about him rescuing me, being my only chance to survive. I know it didn't happen that way, but that's what he wants me to think. _

After several minutes of considering it, though, he could come up with no one motivation that would satisfy him. What _really _mattered was that Potter had wanted him to have the dreams for some reason, and that he probably intended to continue tormenting Draco until he acknowledged Potter.

Draco growled softly as he stood up, gathered his books, and stalked to bed. For once, he was eager to sleep, to see if Potter had decided to send him the dreams tonight or not. From that, he would know how determined an enemy he was dealing with.

_He's not satisfied with sending my father to prison and making me owe him a life-debt. He wants to remind me of the life-debt over and over again, and he wants me to die in my dreams every night, or else depend on him. _

_Why can't he just leave me alone? _

But Draco carefully repaired the breach in his thoughts after that last one, because he didn't whinge like that. He would face Potter with all the cool disdain he could muster, and tell him to stop the dreams if he didn't want Draco to curse him with some complicated Dark Arts in return.

He brightened at the thought. Looking up suitable curses to use on Potter would be an amusing pastime until he fell asleep and learned more about Potter's nefarious plan.

*

_Burning to death. Somehow, Harry had never thought it would hurt so much, even though he'd sometimes seen burned people on the Dursleys' telly and Charlie had told him about dragonfire and what it could do over the summer. But this was pain that spread up and down his body and resonated in his brain. Harry tried to get away from it, and it wouldn't go. He tried to die, and he was still alive. Maybe it was only Fiendfyre that was this cruel._

*

Harry paced in a corner of the Quidditch Pitch, growling softly to himself. He'd sent a note to Malfoy at dinner, and now it was almost nine at night, with clouds closing in that meant it would rain soon and Harry would have to retreat back inside.

_Where is the git? You think he'd have at least sent a note telling me that he wasn't coming and insulting me for thinking he would._

Finally, he heard the crunch of boots over the grass and spotted a slender figure coming towards him. Harry stood still and stared for a moment. His memory still preserved an image of Malfoy as smaller than he was, and scared with it, maybe because Harry had seen him that way so many times in visions from Voldemort. But _this _Malfoy was as tall as Harry was, and walked with an arrogant tilt to his head that nothing seemed to change. His shoulders and arms looked muscled.

_And why am I noticing that? Of course, I have to notice some things about him if he's going to be my distraction._

Harry stepped out to confront Malfoy, who stopped and held up his lit wand when he saw Harry. His face was ridged with tense lines. Harry almost smiled. At least one thing was still normal: no matter how many life-debts Malfoy owed him, he would always distrust Harry.

"Well, Potter, what do you want?" Malfoy demanded. "Have you come to take the curse off at last?"

Harry, opening his mouth to ask why Malfoy had been staring at him the other day, was caught flat-footed. He blinked and then demanded, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You cursed me to have dreams about Fiendfyre." Malfoy made a fast little flourish with his wrist, and then he had his wand in his hand. Harry growled under his breath, furious that he'd been caught off-guard. Malfoy looked astonished, and then as if he wanted to preen. "I know it was you because I didn't think about the dreams all day after you stared at me at breakfast. I want you to take the curse off." He narrowed his eyes and moved closer. "Or I'll show you something the Carrows taught me."

"Git," Harry said. "You were staring at me first, remember? That was the only reason I stared back. And I've been having dreams about Fiendfyre myself. Why wouldn't you have nightmares after an experience like that?"

Malfoy stared at him, his face drawn tight. Harry caught a glimpse of the scared boy he'd seen last year.

But Malfoy shook his head briskly, so that his hair flopped around, and started walking forwards as if he intended to spit Harry on his wand. Harry moved a step back, drawing his own wand, and then forwards. They ended up standing chest to chest, and eye to eye.

Harry began to breathe faster almost despite himself. This close, there was no mistaking the rage and frustration in Malfoy's eyes—and there was the same spark that had caught Harry's attention yesterday morning.

"I can't be having nightmares from the war," Malfoy whispered. "I'm fine. Other people crumbled under what they had to bear, but I didn't." He tilted up one eyebrow and looked askance at Harry. "I'm surprised _you_ haven't gone potty, Potter."

Harry continued the stare. The longer he looked, the more emotions Malfoy's eyes seemed to reveal to him. Rage, fear, denial—well, he could hear the denial in his voice, too—and tiredness.

"You can't get much sleep when those dreams are plaguing you," Harry whispered. "How have you been handling it?"

At once, Malfoy's body snapped straight like a bowstring, and he sneered in Harry's direction. "You would know better than anyone else, wouldn't you? Since you're responsible for those dreams?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, Malfoy, I haven't cursed you. But I have dreams about dying in the fire, and I have dreams about you rescuing me, which makes _no _sense, because that wasn't the way it happened."

Malfoy's face paled dramatically. "What are your dreams about dying in the fire like?" he whispered.

Harry looked at him and thought about demanding that he detail his own dreams, since he was the one who'd brought them up. But Harry was beginning to think that they might help each other more than he'd recognized at first. Someone had to be the one who started. At least Harry wasn't denying that he had the dreams or that they were dramatic and scarring, so he would be the one to begin this.

"The animals in the flames are eating me," Harry said. "Lions and dragons and chimeras. Sometimes I have my broom, and sometimes I don't. I died last night." He licked his lips and felt as though sweat had broken out on his forehead again, but he wasn't about to swipe his hand across his scar to check. That would be weak. "But when I'm safe, it's because you're there."

He stopped. Malfoy had gone paler still, and was swaying on his feet. Harry reached out, wondering if he would need support.

But then Malfoy whispered, "That's not—you can't—" and whirled away and ran back to the school. For a moment, his hand flapped so wildly Harry thought he would drop his wand. He didn't, though.

Harry stood there blinking into the darkness. Then he smiled a little. The description of the dreams was probably like Malfoy's own dreams, only maybe Harry rescued him in them, the way it had _really _happened.

And that made a much more compelling reason for them to keep meeting and keep talking to each other about this, whether Malfoy wanted to or not.

_Maybe we can make the dreams go away together, when we can't apart._

*

_It was hippogriffs this time, the way it had been in his third year. They whirled and stabbed him with shining beaks. When he opened his mouth to scream, the fire flew down his throat and burned his voice out from the inside. And he had the distinct impression that Potter was watching him from close nearby, and laughing._

*

Draco winced and hugged a pillow over his stomach, staring again into the common room fire. At least it was almost midnight and no one was down here to see him. He'd wandered for two hours after his confrontation with Potter, dazed and upset.

That was by far the worst dream to remember. He'd been afraid of dying for most of last year, and the Fiendfyre had been the closest he'd come. And now, to wake up actually thinking for a moment that he hadn't escaped, that he was dying, and in such an awful way…

Draco closed his eyes. Maybe it was time to face facts. He didn't see why Potter would have sent him a dream like that. Potter was petty and irritating and would keep reminding people of all the "wonderful" things he'd done—like earn a life-debt from Draco—until his dying day, but he wasn't cruel.

The dreams were real. The Fiendfyre had scarred his mind somehow, and he had to figure out a different way to make the dreams stop.

It would be much easier if he had help, rather than doing it all on his own.

Draco winced again, and swallowed, and cast a hunted glance up the stairs that led to his bedroom. He wasn't looking forwards to the dream that awaited him when he finally laid his head on the pillow and managed to subdue his whirling thoughts.

Maybe he could stay awake and avoid having it at all?

But no, the chances were good that he would fall asleep in class tomorrow if he did that—History of Magic, if nowhere else—and have the dream then. Then all his careful work to keep it from anyone else's knowledge would go to waste. Worse, he might wake gasping or screaming, and the rest of the Slytherins would know that he suffered from nightmares.

Draco rose and walked to bed with his head tilted at just the prideful, jaunty angle anyone would expect from him if they met him walking at this hour.

He might have to admit that he had nightmares in private, but admitting them in public was another thing altogether.

*

_This time, a dragon with a long golden-red body was chasing him around the walls of the Room of Requirement. Harry didn't know why, but he knew that he couldn't run into the center of the room to get away from it. Something was waiting in the center of the room, something worse than the dragon, and something that would eat him alive, like the dragon._

Burn me to death, _Harry thought, and remembered the dream from last night, and ducked low to avoid a snap of the dragon's jaws that sounded like angry teakettles as they came together behind him._

_What was in the center of the room that could be worse than this?_

_He whirled and stared into that center, expecting to see another dragon, larger than this one and with longer teeth, or a whirling maelstrom with the faces of his dead parents in it, or the image of Siruis falling through the veil or Remus lying stretched out on the floor of the Great Hall, or maybe Ginny the way she had looked after Harry explained that he had didn't want to go out with her again—_

_And instead he saw Malfoy standing with his hand stretched out, his face cool and appraising, his eyes blank. Harry could make a guess at what he was feeling, but he couldn't tell, not for sure. _

_He was tired of running, and he could feel the flames that rose from the dragon's jaws skimming his heels. _

_He sprang into the center of the room and took Malfoy's hand. _

_And then a heat greater than the dragon's curled around him and consumed him._

*

Harry waited in the library for Malfoy. The git had sent him an owl earlier that day, saying that, after all, he was interested in talking to Harry about this, and he wanted to start their research among the books on Fiendfyre.

Harry could think of more effective ways for them to dismiss the dreams and get over their fear, but he reckoned he should be grateful that Malfoy was meeting him at all. He certainly hadn't seemed very responsive two nights ago, and Harry hadn't been looking forwards to strong-arming him into the fight—though he would have done it if he had to.

"Potter."

Malfoy stepped up to the table and stared down at him. His arms were full of books, which made Harry, with just three tomes in front of him, feel strangely inadequate for a moment—especially because Malfoy had much the same blank eyes that he'd had in Harry's last dream.

_Bollocks. We have to interact on an equal footing, or else he'll just control it for good. _

Harry responded, "Malfoy," and stared back. For a moment, he thought it would get as intense as it did in the Great Hall at breakfast the other day, but then Malfoy lowered his eyes and dropped into a chair across from Harry. His books clattered as they spread out on the table. Madam Pince looked up from her desk and glared at them.

"So," Malfoy said. "How should we do this?"

"Start with the table of contents," Harry said, good advice he'd picked up from Hermione when it came to reading textbooks. "If something looks interesting, go there first. We're looking for aftereffects of Fiendfyre on the mind and the imagination." He picked up the book that lay nearest to him and opened it.

Malfoy appeared faintly impressed. "That's the most complex sentence I've ever heard you construct," he explained, when Harry looked at him.

Harry rolled his eyes, thought about taking offense, and then decided it wasn't worth it. He began scanning his table of contents, looking for mentions of dreams or Fiendfyre's psychological effects, instead. Across from him, Malfoy started doing the same thing with one of the books he'd brought over.

Harry watched him now and then, mostly because seeing the light from the windows shining in Malfoy's blond hair gave him an odd feeling low in the pit of his stomach.

*

_Potter was above him. Or not. It frightened Draco, the idea that he might look up and Potter wouldn't be there. _

_He solved the problem by keeping his eyes on the ranks of red nundus in front of him instead, enormous cats who would kill him in an instant if he moved. But how could he not move, with the fire also creeping in behind him, licking at his heels?_

_The nearest nundu opened its mouth and yawned. A blast of flame shot out that singed Draco's eyelashes and made him tremble. _

_And he understood that staying still was no solution, either. _

_"Malfoy! Draco!_"

_Hardly stopping to think that this might be a trick of the fire, too, and that there was no reason for the feeling of relief flooding through him even if it wasn't, Draco tilted his head back, his eyes automatically seeking out Potter. _

_There he was, hovering. He held out a hand, but he didn't swoop lower to meet Draco. Draco stared up at him, feeling fear and fire dry his throat. How was he supposed to reach Potter if he didn't come lower? _

"_Potter!_"

_"You need to jump," Potter said calmly. "I'll come down and pick you up when you do._"

_Draco took a deep breath, and that was worse, as he breathed in only ashes. "How do I know I can trust you to do that?"_

_Potter gave a slight, alien smile, worse than the halo of flames that danced about his head. "You don't._"

_Draco stood there a moment longer. The floor was beginning to burn beneath his feet. The nundus stalked closer, flinging their tails from side to side and snarling hungrily. He knew he would be consumed where he stood if he remained. _

_Standing still wasn't safe. _

_He jumped._

_And Potter's hand smacked into his._

*

"I'm starting to think we won't find anything in these books."

Draco peered sideways at Potter, while appearing to keep most of his attention on the book in front of him. Potter sat under the tree at the edge of the lake, his eyes ferociously narrowed on the book _he _held. As Draco watched, he slammed it shut and dropped it carelessly at his feet. Draco winced automatically, though the charms around them should protect paper and leather as well as their own skin from the strike of wind and snow, or the mud beneath that.

Potter leaned forwards, his elbows driving into the dirt, his scowl directed at the lake now. Draco followed his gaze. The wind was whipping the surface up into small waves and driving them at the shore. Warming Charms kept Draco from feeling how cold the water was as small droplets of spray flew towards them, but he thought they could have been absent and Potter never would have noticed the difference.

In fact, Draco thought, eyeing Potter critically, he'd allowed his outer layer of Warming Charms to collapse completely. He waved his wand and subtly renewed them again. "Why?" he asked. "Just because we haven't found an answer in the books we've looked at so far—"

"Not only no answer, but nothing like an answer." Potter sat up and spun around to face him. Draco jumped although he'd been expecting it. Potter moved so _suddenly_, which made the stillness of the way he hovered in Draco's dreams seem out of place. "Fiendfyre affects the body. It doesn't cause nightmares, except the way any horrific experience does. It doesn't cause connections of some kind between people who've survived it." He made a noise of frustration and shook his head. "I've asked Ron and Hermione. They don't have anything like this." He caught his breath and peered hopefully at Draco. "But I forgot about Goyle. Could you—"

"Gregory's mad, Potter," Draco said flatly, and turned to face the lake. Vivid memories haunted his mind of the last time he'd gone to visit Greg, and found him whimpering, face-down in a corner of his room at St. Mungo's, covered with piss and vomit. "I can't tell if his hallucinations are due to Fiendfyre or to seeing Vincent die, but we'll get nothing from him."

Potter caught his breath again. Then he didn't say anything, and Draco reckoned he had returned to his book.

So the soft touch on his shoulder surprised the fuck out of him.

Draco glanced sideways, expecting Potter to come to his senses and remove his hand, but Potter kept it in place and gazed at him, long and earnestly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't know."

Draco licked his lips. Their faces were closer than they'd been at any time since they began this stupid study of Fiendfyre, and he found himself wondering what would happen if he reached up and covered Potter's hand with his own, the way he had in the dream. Could it hurt? Would Potter really resent him for it?

No sooner speculated on than done, it seemed. He reached up and entwined his fingers with Potter's.

Potter stared at him, eyes wide and hard and suspicious, and Draco regretted the gesture. He started to pull his hand back.

Potter squeezed his wrist hard, and then jumped up and away, kicking a pebble into the lake. "I have another idea," he said. "Something else that might make us face the fear. I think fear is causing these dreams." He was speaking fast, almost babbling. "Once it's done with, then we shouldn't have them anymore."

_Are you sure of that? _Draco wanted to ask, but there was no way he could do it without opening the uncomfortable path he and Potter had just been walking down. He ducked his head in agreement instead, and reached out to pick up the books.

Looking up to ask another question—whether he or Potter should return the books to the library—he caught Potter's eyes, curious and questioning, turned on him.

What shone in those eyes made his throat dry in Potter's company for the first time outside a dream.

*

_Malfoy clutched him around the waist and hauled him backwards. By now, Harry knew enough about the dreams not to whinge that he had saved Malfoy and not the other way around. He went with the pull until they were above the flames, and then leaned forwards, propelling the broom into clear air. _

_He gasped quietly, filling his lungs, and then Malfoy was turning him bodily around on the broom. Harry went with it even though he knew they would fall if they were really flying._

_Malfoy eyed him meditatively, then whispered, "Would it really be so terrible if I saved you?"_

_"I just want to keep the truth clear in my mind," Harry whispered back. "Truth is important."_

_"Yes," Malfoy said, "but there's more than one kind of truth. No one's going to forget that you defeated the Dark Lord. But they're already forgetting that you rescued me. I had someone ask me in the corridor yesterday who would ever consider saving a worthless piece of scum like me._"

"_Someone, right," Harry said. "Tell me who it was." Then he decided that wasn't the most important thing, and added lamely, "Anyway, you said you didn't like your life-debt being pushed in your face all the time."_

_"I might not be averse to a few reminders," Malfoy said, and then put his hands on Harry's shoulders and just hovered there, staring at him expectantly, as if Harry knew what should happen next._

_"What am I supposed to do?" Harry asked, when he realized that the silence had stretched too long. And it was silence. They had long since left the crackling of the fire behind, in this dream._

_"Dreams aren't reality," Malfoy said, which was the answer to a question he _hadn't _asked. "But they can be a safe place to try things you never would in reality, and watch the consequences. Because you fear the consequences._"

_Harry would have said something about fear being at the bottom of the dreams after all, including this strange one, but the world dissolved into light, and he didn't get the chance._

*

"What are you doing, Potter?"

Harry turned to look over his shoulder. Malfoy stood behind him, lip slightly curled. Harry wiped sweat from his eyes and took a firmer grip on the log. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he asked. "Building a fire."

Malfoy rolled his eyes and drew his wand. The log promptly floated out of Harry's hands and to the pile of twigs and branches and kindling he'd already collected. "No, I meant, why are you doing it with your hands and not your wand?"

"Oh," Harry muttered, and began to float more logs towards the pile. He hoped that Malfoy would mistake his flush for the redness of exertion.

Malfoy gave him a smirk that said he knew exactly why Harry's face was so red, but joined him in collecting logs. They worked in silence, until they had a massive pile of wood that Harry thought should be sufficient to feed most fires. He went over and stood in front of it, silently waiting until Malfoy had joined him.

They were in a snowy clearing in the Forbidden Forest, out of sight of Hogwarts. Harry didn't think anyone would miss them. It was Christmas Eve, and most of the professors would be preparing for the feast, while the few other students who'd signed up to stay over the holidays would probably be too involved in flirting or studying or enchanting their own robes for dinner to notice an absence.

Harry had been surprised when Malfoy stayed, and asked him why. Malfoy had shrugged and said, "Nothing much to go back to."

Harry, who knew the feeling too well, hadn't pressed the point, but he did grip Malfoy's shoulder and squeeze, just slightly. Malfoy had looked at him without speaking. They'd touched each other more frequently since the day by the lake, and more easily.

_More intimately, even. _But just because Harry had dreamed about something like that didn't make it the right word in reality.

"What are we doing here?" Malfoy demanded at last.

Harry relaxed a little, and smiled. He'd thought impatience would tell on Malfoy until he finally had to say something. "Because we're facing our fear," he said simply. "And all that reading about Fiendfyre was good for something. It didn't tell us about the dreams, but it told me about how to create a good imitation of Fiendfyre."

Malfoy froze. Then he whispered, "Potter. You can't."

The whisper was more in the nature of a statement than a warning, which was the only reason Harry didn't bristle at it. He faced Malfoy and seized his arms in a firm grip. Malfoy shook his head, his eyes fastened on the pile of logs, and it took him long moments to look at Harry. Harry braced him for a minute when he did; he had to be sure that Malfoy wouldn't simply faint.

"I have to," Harry said. "I have to try, at least. We can face the situation all we like in dreams, but dreams aren't reality."

"Of course not," Malfoy murmured absently, in the way of someone trying to think of something random to calm and distract himself. "They're just testing places where you can see what works and not really face the consequences."

Harry felt struck. "_What_?"

Malfoy blinked at him. "You heard what I said." Harry wondered when Malfoy had become so good at reading his expressions. "Is it really that hard to understand?"

"I—I had a dream that incorporated words like that, that's all," Harry muttered, wondering if they'd abandoned the books about Fiendfyre too quickly. "Did you?"

Malfoy shook his head. "I don't think there's some kind of mystical connection between us, Potter," he said. "Or if it is, it's one that books won't let us understand." He squeezed one of Harry's wrists until he released his hold on Malfoy's arms, and then turned back to the fire. "Let's do this, then. Conjure your imitation Fiendfyre."

Harry scanned Malfoy's face closely, but he didn't think he was lying. Maybe he'd got good at reading the git's expressions, too.

He stepped up to the edge of the makeshift hearth and whispered the incantation the third book had given him. He'd practiced this in his room last night, but it was still an odd thrill to watch the fire blossom from the logs with a series of hisses, and then transform into the leaping lions and dragons and chimeras that had haunted his nightmares.

Malfoy stiffened and then began to shiver uncontrollably. Harry wasn't doing so well himself as he watched a long red-gold dragon unfold itself from the rest of the flames and start creeping towards them, but he held his ground. Then he raised his wand and moved it in a circle above their heads, mouthing, "_Adaugeo._"

The fire jumped. Now they were encircled by it, the same way they'd been by the Fiendfyre. Harry could hear howls and roars in the flames, if he concentrated well enough. The wall of heat had a dragon coiling around the bottom of it, while lions danced on its back and struck with their claws at the air above Harry and Malfoy's heads.

"Potter!" Malfoy's voice was a thin, shrill shriek like a teakettle's. "Are you _mad_? What—"

Harry grabbed his arms to hold him still again. "The fire's under my control!" he yelled into his ear. "We have to face it, or the dreams will continue and we'll just be running away for the rest of our lives!"

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Malfoy moaned. But he stood in place, and only cringed when the lions' claws slashed the air by his ear, instead of fainting. Harry felt a burst of pride in him.

He moved closer to Malfoy, so that they were standing back-to-back, as the ring of fire tightened. The snow steamed and melted, but the flames were fierce enough that that didn't make much difference. Harry was shivering himself. The fire might be under his control, but it was like the dreams, exactly like the dreams—

_No, not exactly like them. I have Malfoy by my side this time, instead of just having to rescue him._

He glanced back at Malfoy. Sweating, shaking, his mouth open and moving in soundless curses, his wand trembling in his hand, his eyes wide and fixed on the fire as if looking away would make it burn him faster.

But he didn't flinch. He didn't break. He didn't run.

There came that burst of pride again, and Harry decided that he could risk taking enough attention away from the fire spell to put a hand on Malfoy's shoulder. Malfoy looked at him, his eyes losing some of their fear. A different emotion entered them. Harry thought he had seen part of that shine in the dreams.

A bit of fire tore itself loose from the circle suddenly, and landed on the snow. For a moment, it was as formless as the tail of a comet; then it turned into a chimera and stalked towards them. Harry watched the lion's head, the goat's head, the hissing snake's head, and felt a curious urge to laugh. _Lion and snake. Like us._

He held the laughter in. Malfoy was holding up fine now, but if he thought Harry had gone hysterical…

The chimera halted three feet away and stuck out a forked tongue between teeth that looked long enough to go through Harry's skull. Twice. It snarled, and in its voice was the voice of all the nightmares Harry had had about the Room of Requirement.

Malfoy shook behind him. Harry wondered idly when he would throw his wand into the air and run shrieking in a random direction.

But he didn't break. And he didn't run.

The chimera lowered its face until it was eye-to-eye with Harry and snarled again. Harry hung onto his courage with both hands. The dreams had been about salvation and death. Two fairly clear-cut alternatives. Harry would choose the one that led to him surviving, thanks.

If that meant enduring the fire, then he would.

The chimera came so close that Harry could smell his own hair burning. He wasn't sure which hair it was, and he didn't dare take his eyes from the chimera to find out. He clamped his hands down on the wand.

_You control this. You control this the way you don't control the dreams. You can banish the flames at any moment if you want. _

Except that he couldn't, or they would fail the test, and he knew it.

He began to float from moment to moment, his eyes fixed on the chimera's body, sometimes seeing it as one entity, sometimes as a bunch of clustered flames that billowed around one another and fuzzed into simple lights. Each time his vision changed, he promised himself that he would banish the fire with the _next _change. He only had to hold on a little longer.

And the little longer became many minutes, and still he stood there with Malfoy's warm back pressed against his, and with Malfoy's cheek resting against his, because Malfoy had turned his head over Harry's shoulder to look at the chimera. They stood together amid the burning. They stood together amid the fire.

And they did not break, and they did not run.

The chimera abruptly became nothing more than a flying banner of fire, formless as ordinary flames were, leaping away from them to join the ring around them. Harry blinked and looked in several directions. There were no more animals in the fire. The dragon had faded. The lions were the tops of flames that bowed to them, and then sank down into the ring of melted snow and burnt earth and vanished, although Harry had not banished them.

They stood together, he and Malfoy, in the ring of their own strength. They had not broken, and they had not run.

Harry took a breath that made him dizzy with smoke and daring, and turned to face Malfoy. Malfoy stood staring at him. His fingers were slippery on his wand, probably with sweat; he shifted them back and forth, and then stuck the wand into a pocket.

They stood facing each other, and moments as long as the time when they had faced the chimera seemed to slide past.

Harry remembered his last dream.

_Nothing to fear but the consequences. _

He reached out, put his hands on Malfoy's shoulders, and drew him close, into a kiss.

*

_"Would you have really let your pride kill you?"_

_Draco started and turned around on the broom. He'd been contemplating the Fiendfyre, which still reached after them as if it would clutch them and drag them down to earth. He had thought Potter would be doing the same thing. _

_Instead, Potter's eyes were fixed on him, and he was leaning forwards as if he _needed _an answer to his question._

_"I didn't want you to rescue me because it was you," Draco said, when he realized that Potter wasn't going to look away and give up the staring contest. "But no. I want to live more. I let you pick me up, didn't I?" He rubbed the back of his neck and wished there was something else to look at. But now that he had taken his eyes from it, the Fiendfyre was no longer appealing. _

_"That's something good to know," Potter said, with a faint smile that broadened as Draco watched in confusion._

_"Why would you care, Potter?"_

_Potter tossed his black hair out of his eyes and leaned closer. They were separated only by a few inches of broomstick in any case, but Draco thought he had never known how long those inches could seem until Potter leaned into his personal space. _

_"Because I want to see you do more with your life than burn to a crisp," Potter said simply. He reached out and slowly ran his fingers up Draco's arm to the shoulder, as if he were exploring the muscle. Draco would have flinched away from the touch ordinarily, but astonishment held him frozen now, a deep chill that had settled into his bones and combated the painfully warm reach of the Fiendfyre. "I think you know that."_

_Draco blinked. "That you have…ambitions for me? I certainly do not._"

_"Call them by their right name, at least," Potter said, with a slow smile that Draco could see the girls admiring until doomsday. Resentment melted some of his astonishment, and then confusion, because he couldn't understand where the resentment would have come from. "They're not ambitions. They're—"And he paused, looking at Draco inquiringly._

_Draco shrugged. Even in dreams, Potter was infuriating._

_Potter leaned closer still, until his breath blew into Draco's face. Bizarrely, it smelled as if he'd been eating cheese sandwiches. _

_"Desires," Potter whispered._

*

Given that dream, Draco found it a little less bizarre to be lying on the warm ground beneath Potter now, with steaming snow a few inches away, and a haze of smoke still drifting through the air, and the memory of fire bright and piercing in his mind.

_A _little _less bizarre. It still earns the title of pretty bloody bizarre. _

Potter lacked experience, but he made up for that in determination. His fingers dug into Draco's shoulders and arms. He panted into his face. He twisted his tongue in a thousand impossible directions.

Draco gripped his chin and held him motionless for a few moments, teaching him how to kiss rather than choke his partner. Potter, being Potter, bit his tongue as thanks for the lesson, but did go more slowly after that, and Draco felt his eyes begin to drift shut. Warmth beneath his shoulders, warmth around him, warmth above him.

Not the warmth of Fiendfyre. This wanted to embrace him and not devour him.

His eyes did blink and widen, and he made an undignified, stuttering gasp, as Potter slid his hand into his pants. Potter looked down at him, his mouth wet and swollen from the kisses, his eyes brighter than any fire that had ever burned.

"Can you handle it, Malfoy?" he challenged.

Draco smirked up at him, increasing the sharpness of the expression until Potter looked at him with irritation. He needed it, that combination of the familiar and the strange, before he went forwards.

"I can take anything you give me, Potter," he said.

Potter snarl-smiled at him, said, "I'm rather hoping that you'll give me something in return," and guided Draco's hand to his own erection. Draco grunted and twisted a little, freeing one of his arms from Potter's hold so that he could get to bare skin instead of simple cloth.

Potter's mouth fell open and he moaned. That was all the encouragement Draco needed to kiss him again, because if he listened to many more of those moans, he would come far too fast.

They rocked against each other, the heat building between them and winding out from them in invisible tendrils. Potter's palm was warm and rough, his elbows hard and awkward, his cock slim and pulsing with life that made Draco think of fire. Their sweat mingled, and their blood; when Draco bit Potter's lip too hard on accident, Potter bit him back.

And always Potter's eyes were afire with pride and happiness and challenge and defiance.

And the emotion he had named in the dream, the emotion Draco found it hard to name to himself even now.

When he came, he dug the fingernails of his free hand into Potter's back and smashed his mouth against Potter's in a kiss. Potter jammed his tongue down Draco's throat in response, and bucked and shuddered and slammed Draco with his hips, and soaked his hand.

His come was warm, too, warmer than the fire, and it set another fire in Draco's mind.

Not that he was going to _tell _Potter that. It was hard enough to pull his hand free afterwards and deal with the burning silence, as Potter lay still on top of him and lowered his head to Draco's neck, to breathe hot dampness on his skin.

*

_This time, there was no telling who was rescuing who. Arms pulled at arms. Bodies twined with bodies. The broomstick was sometimes beneath them, sometimes above them, as if they were flying upside-down—_

_And sometimes missing altogether, as if they could fly on wings of their own._

_The Fiendfyre still burned, far below. Harry thought now that it would probably always be there, a reminder of what had been, or a symbol of the forces waiting to eat them if they fell. There was no saying that they would always have these wings. There was no saying that they would always be together. _

_But for now, they were, and Harry whispered into the ear next to his mouth, "Draco," and heard a chuckle as bright as any flame._

*

_Desire._

_Draco could name it now, and not shrink from doing so. Why should he be afraid of it? He had faced his fear, and it was as terrible as he had thought it would be. But it was past now, and what he had was the future. _

_Or at least as much of the future as could be contained in a pair of tumbling, twisting bodies, sometimes naked, sometimes not, sometimes flying, sometimes falling. _

_But they had not yet fallen into the Fiendfyre. That was something._

_He looked into Potter's green eyes, and thought he could go on quite happily looking into them for—well, not forever. But for a bloody long time. _

"_Harry," he whispered, and the green eyes blazed at him._

*

So they woke in the morning, with the evidence of burning behind them, and the light of sunrise before them.

**End.**


End file.
